Articles by Grist staff

Taxation Without Vexation

A British plan for a climate change tax to be levied on heavy energy users has been significantly scaled back, from about a 20 percent tax on energy costs to a 10 percent tax, in large part because of complaints from industry. But proposed changes to the climate change tax, set to go into effect […]

Well, Well, Well

New York Gov. George Pataki (R) yesterday set strict new limits for drinking water pollution from the gasoline additive MTBE, responding to growing concerns about its health effects. MTBE makes gasoline burn cleaner and helps reduce air pollution, but it has been found to contaminate wells and water supplies, and a federal panel this summer […]

Byrds of a Feather Flock Together

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) rallied more than 500 miners outside the Capitol yesterday, complaining that the White House had backed off on its support for a rider that would let strip mining continue on West Virginia mountaintops. A federal judge ruled last month that the controversial “mountaintop removal” mining technique, which uses explosives to take […]

The Yellow Haze of Texas

GOP presidential frontrunner George W. Bush boasts about a law he signed in Texas earlier this year that set voluntary pollution standards for old industrial plants, saying he has done more than any previous Texas governor to clean up industry. But enviros and even federal officials say the new law is far too lax to […]